[Mobhack]

The advancing force gets 1.5 times the delayers points value (IIRC, it may be twice as many, and I think its 3 times for the attacker in an assault)

So every point you spend as P1 from the support pool is giving him as P2 1.5-2 extra buy points. Support points are voluntary (for payer 1, not so if you are player 2 of course!). Only spend them if you need them, really.

The AI will now buy cheap general support artillery if it's attacking. It will tend to buy those in batallion sized lumps, too. This increases the AI tube count. They have a longer plotting delay, but if you have the full game, the AI does sometimes do a programmed barrage now, with a mixture of random shoots into its area of interest, or around the objective hexes, along with some effort at a rolling barrage that will steadily walk from the front line onwards. It will also use its on map mortars and arty in the programme - unlike the traditional single turn 0 fire of old.

You bought "nine off map guns" - unlikely since the Germans only have 4 gun off-map batteries. Perhaps you meant 2 batteries (ie 8 guns) - you would be unlikely to have been able to buy 9 batteries with the usual support points.

The British cruiser tanks are quite cheap - only 50 points for an A13, 57 for a crusader 1. They are easy targets with thin skins. The Infantry tanks will take a long time to get into the fight, and Matildas are only 80 points being slow and as weakly armed as the cruisers. The Brits use leg infantry in the main - with some motorised on cheap light trucks. APCS are rare till Europe. The brits like a lot of recce - so expect plenty of tin can armoured cars and universal carriers.

The AI will be buying at book prices as well whereas your troops will likely be experts by now, and so cost rather a lot more than the book price shown in the encyclopaedia.

The searching fires in the programme can find stuff you think is "hidden". And even if the AI is not using a programmed fire plan, it will still then plot stuff randomly searching mainly within 10-12 hexes or so of an objective starting to fall from about turn 3-4 onwards. Add random fall for unobserved fall of shot, and the area out to 20 hexes from any objective hex is in danger of being stonked. (It also likes crossroad hexes in your area, so same applies to those as well as roads, though to a lesser amount than the V-hex area). Some fire is occasionally plotted randomly into the rear area of the enemy deployment zone too on occasion, since that's where arty, area SAMs and other high-value stuff is often parked.

All AI plotting is using exactly the same info you would get as a human player - there aren't any "hints" or "cheats" - unlike the original SSI code which did do that. So your 88s either were put somewhere the randomiser decided to plant a stonk, or were spotted moving and setting up there if in LOS to some unit on the enemy side.

Personally, I don't bother to use on-map indirect arty, unless it is SP arty that can displace quickly to get out of counter battery fires. Exception is mortars, but I place these in patches of rough or on a field or soft sand, which has some defensive worth to HE fire. The AI has the same info as you - and just like you will see the "puffs of smoke" your indirect fire units show when firing, and plot fires onto those. My SP arty will scoot after 2 turns fired, my mortars will simply hunker down in the rough and suck it up.